Is Merlin slower than stock for browsing?

[brummygit]

I've been running Asuswrt-Merlin on my RT-AC68U and recently gave the Asus stock firmware 378_9135 a try. Having switched back to Merlin's latest beta I'm finding that Merlin is much slower for web browsing.

I don't have any issues getting my maximum bandwidth (around 70Mbps down and 20Mbps up) but what I notice is the speed at which web pages are displayed. This is almost as if its a dns performance problem.

My config (both start from a factory reset) uses the ASUS Adaptive QoS and AiProtection in both and on stock I configure OpenDNS as my WAN DNS manually whereas on Merlin I like to use the DNS filtering option which gives me granular control.

Is it normal that Merlin should be noticeably slower, or am I likely to have some form of issue?

 

[joegreat]

I've been running Asuswrt-Merlin on my RT-AC68U and recently gave the Asus stock firmware 378_9135 a try. Having switched back to Merlin's latest beta I'm finding that Merlin is much slower for web browsing.

Hi,

I have a 150/15 MBit line and full speed with Merlin firmware on browsing.

After switching firmware, you need to do a factory reset and start a fresh configuration (or use the NVRAM Save/Restore utility to save and restore the user settings after factory reset).
Do a manual minimum configuration and test before you add USB drive or AICloud functionality.

With kind regards
Joe

 

[RMerlin]

Is it normal that Merlin should be noticeably slower, or am I likely to have some form of issue?

If you enable the same features as you do under stock, then the performance should be identical.

 

[brummygit]

If you enable the same features as you do under stock, then the performance should be identical.

Thank you RMerlin. The only major difference in my configurations is DNS Filtering - are you aware of any significant performance differences that this would introduce?

 

[brummygit]

Thank you RMerlin. The only major difference in my configurations is DNS Filtering - are you aware of any significant performance differences that this would introduce?

In the stock FW I configure OpenDNS as my WAN DNS manually whereas on Merlin I like to use the DNS filtering option to enforce the same OpenDNS servers as this gives me granular control if I want it, and more importantly enforces the use of my preferred DNS.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Thank you RMerlin. The only major difference in my configurations is DNS Filtering - are you aware of any significant performance differences that this would introduce?

You could try running DNS Bench (https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm) with DNS Filtering disabled and then enabled to see if there's an obvious difference.

 

[Zirescu]

In the stock FW I configure OpenDNS as my WAN DNS manually whereas on Merlin I like to use the DNS filtering option to enforce the same OpenDNS servers as this gives me granular control if I want it, and more importantly enforces the use of my preferred DNS.

Is the computer you're testing from also going through OpenDNS?

 

[john9527]

In the stock FW I configure OpenDNS as my WAN DNS manually whereas on Merlin I like to use the DNS filtering option to enforce the same OpenDNS servers as this gives me granular control if I want it, and more importantly enforces the use of my preferred DNS.

When you plug in the servers as the WAN DNS the router will act as a DNS cache for the OpenDNS requests via dnsmasq. When you use DNS filtering, the requests are not cached and all requests get directed to the OpenDNS servers.